


Keith McClain

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Childhood Memories, Flashback, Flashforward - Freeform, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, Season 6 Episode 2 "Razor's Edge" spoilers, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, basically Keith sees his future hubby in the quantum abyss and gets... a little obsessed.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 05:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14994101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Keith gets a lot of glimpses into the distant future, one into the past, and one a little closer to home.





	Keith McClain

Aching, tender fingers grasp his.  The smell of sunlight, heady and thick.  Keith breathes in deep the air of the future and he knows he’s watching his own death.

It's a happy one.  An old man sits beside him, old like he is, and his eyes are filled with so much love.  Keith doesn't immediately recognize him, probably hasn't even met him yet, but he’s human from his weathered dark skin to his salt and pepper hair.  His blue eyes are clear though, and so so in love, his face crinkled with laughter and too many bright smiles over a near century.

Keith himself doesn't look nearly as good.  His hair is white, long and braided back despite how lifeless and brittle it is.  His hands are gnarled, calloused, scarred. His eyes are dull, thick glasses on his face, age spots dotting him all over and bruises on his forearms.  It's not anyone's fault, somehow present Keith knows that, just the medicines keeping him alive making him tender and easy to marr.

There's a simple gold ring on his finger.  Another one on the man sitting next to him, but his is a steel gray.  They’re married, Keith realizes.

The moment doesn't last long before Keith is yanked into the present, the warm hand of his mother keeping him steady.

“Your future,” she says, impossibly happy.  “You grow old, you live to see the end of this war, you are loved.  It's everything I have ever wanted for you.”

“I-I… You think it's good?” Keith had never considered living any longer than it would take for him to win this war.  He never considered growing old or being happy.

“I know I’ll never get that with your father, and that will always be a hurt I carry with me,” Krolia smiles at him, cupping his face in her clawed hand.  “But that you outlive this war and grow to be old and happy with the one you love? It's the best thing I could ask of the future.”

He smiles back at her, tentatively opening his arms for a hug.  She pulls him close, burying her nose in his hair.

Teasingly, she jokes, “You’re going to grow out your hair until it's longer than mine.  Better get started!”

“It's not going to take me 80 years to get my hair that long!”

“It is if you keep cutting it with your knife so poorly.”

“Ugh!”

* * *

The next glimpse of the future Keith gets is a little closer to home.

He’s alone this time, he isn't sharing his vision with Krolia, thank God.  Because this time, it's intimate, far too intimate for him to share it with his mother.

Because he was being kissed.  He couldn't see who was kissing him, the angle was bad and their hood was up, but they were just a smidge taller than him.  They were definitely male, their hands a shade lighter than Keith remembers on his future husband, but Keith isn't a romantic; he’s probably only got one shot at this.  They’re likely the same person, just young before the age spots set in and the rust of age settles in his skin.

Whatever they’re whispering to him, he can't hear it.  All he can do is watch as he’s dipped backwards and kissed again, and again, and again.

Future Keith lingers in his lover's arms, eyes bright and arms holding on for dear life.

“I love you,” the man says, and Keith can't remember the last time he cried like that, happy tears rolling down his cheeks as he laughed, smile trembling with joy.

And it doesn't stop there, it lingers, Keith watching the two of them stumble into a room together, a juvenile one decorated with glow in the dark stars and posters of constellations and the smell of boy.  And the whole time, they kiss, they talk about their dreams for the future, they learn each other's bodies as adults too large for the twin bed they’re sharing.

Even when his lover retires, snoring as Keith rests his head on that supine chest, he watches himself cry more happy tears.

This joy is more than he thought he’d ever see in his lifetime.  It's overwhelming for future Keith, and current Keith already knows it will happen.  Even with forewarning, he can't help it. He knows he is loved and it's too powerful for him to contain in his entire body so it leaks out even as he lets out a contented noise and closes his eyes, tucking his smile into that dark skin.

When Keith returns to the present, he feels echoes of those tears come down his cheeks.

* * *

This same person is a reoccurrence in all of his glimpses of the future.

Krolia and he watch together as her memories and his play out like movies, and sometimes he sees his parents being absolutely mushy and sometimes Krolia sees his future husband carry him off to bed like a princess, a spring in his step.

Once, they see a memory of Keith’s from the past.

Keith is sitting at a desk in the Garrison, Shiro up front giving a guest lecture, and there's a boy behind Keith who’s staring at the back of his head.

A tiny Lance, current Keith knows, but past Keith had no clue his future rival and teammate was seated behind him.

Keith nudges Krolia, smiling a little, since she doesn't often see memories from him being bored at school, nor of his current teammates.

That’s Lance, he wants to tell her, but he can't speak in these memories.  He starts walking like a ghost in between the desks until he's standing next to his teammate, a fond smile on his face.

Lance’s notes are a mess.  He’s got little drawings of rocket ships and palm trees and even some stick figures.  Half of his paper is just his own name with big hearts around it.

Keith giggles, his heart melting to mush as he thought that it was no wonder it took Lance a while to catch up to him.

Keith lost his train of thought as he looked closer, realizing that Lance hadn't been writing his own name.  He was writing infinite variants of Keith McClain.

He’s daydreaming… of marrying Keith.  He felt his heart pound in his chest at the thought, his cheeks turning red.  A childhood admiration interpreted as romance. Keith being the star pilot, being his rival, must've really confused the poor guy at this age.

Keith thinks about teasing Lance for it, but his own blush isn't going away.  He stole one more glance at the paper before the memory ended for them. Keith McClain.  How cute, how stupidly cute.

Keith hadn't ever done something quite like that.  He often wrote his own name, but he’d tack on his foster family's last name so he pretended he was adopted.  If the Keith back then had seen it, that's exactly what he would've thought Lance was doing–would’ve asked Lance if that meant his family wanted to adopt him–but the flush on Lance’s chubby baby cheeks and his heated glare made it obvious to Keith now that his teammate had been crushing on him, badly.

Huh, Keith thought.  Lance must've grown out of it.

After all, Keith likes Lance, had nursed a crush on him too, but years after Lance’s own confused one, and much too late.

The past was in the past.  Keith prefers looking to the future, where he could find some reassurance in the fact that he might not be Keith McClain but he is no longer Keith Kogane, and that he has a family and a husband and more.

* * *

Keith can't really keep a journal in space, but he engrains those future memories into his mindscape and works over them until they leave grooves in his mind.  When he gets back to earth, Keith can't risk brushing this person aside. So he collects little facts about them, hoards them away like precious treasures.

They like coffee, brewed it strong but poured in cream and sugar.  They had facial hair–Keith had been mortified when his mother and he both got to witness his older self rubbing his cheek against the scruff and making a noise Krolia confirmed was Galran purring.  They didn't have kids themselves, Keith had never wanted them, but his husband had a large family that they both loved like their own, and it was enough for them both. They had the best hands in the whole world, long fingers and broad palms and they tangled so well with Keith’s own.

They knew Keith was half-Galra.  They knew, and they were okay with it.  They ran their fingers through Keith’s ever-lengthening hair and told him that they loved it.  They kissed his smile and returned it with their own.

Keith memorizes the birthmark on their lower back, the scars across the rest of it, the exact swell of his chest and the way only one of his nipples was pierced through, and not always, not right away.  He memorizes the length of his lover's legs, the way his calves were sculpted. He engrains every nugget of information because he needs to be able to see this man and hold on, to somehow convince him to love Keith until he died.

Keith sometimes invites the time flashes, standing out in the light full on, desperate to know more.

He already loves this phantom of the future.

 

* * *

Every vision distracted them from the truth–that it had almost been a year living out here.  It didn't matter to Keith sometimes, because even when he wasn't living with his mother and their wolf, he was living in the future or the past, always doing something at sometime in his life.

Sometimes he saw harrowing battles, both inside and outside of Voltron.  Sometimes he saw peace, a tiny wolf puppy on his lap and his husband wrapped around him, kissing his forehead softly.

With nothing else to do, it taught him patience.  Unable to chose what he saw, it taught him humility.  Every day was just another day closer to winning the war, and being able to go back to earth.  And when he did, he’d find him.

* * *

Right before they reached the planet, Keith had one more vision.  The last vision he’d get of the future.

As much as Keith willed to see his future husband one more time, it seemed like this was only a glimpse a few moments into the future.

Keith was wearing his paladin armor.  Talking to Lance. They weren't on a part of the castle ship that Keith recognized.  They might even be on Earth, except for the futuristic alien technology around them inside the building.

Present Keith couldn't tell what future Lance was talking about.  He just ached, wishing he got to see something further ahead. Something that would give him one last clue to who his one shot at love might be.

But this was nice too, he supposed.  Keith had always liked Lance. Even when Lance was teasing or glaring with flushed cheeks, Keith had always liked Lance.  Hopefully, Keith would see him in person soon.

Future Keith said something, garbled with background static as the light of the dark star began to wane.

And future Lance smiled at him, bright as the sun, and entwined their fingers.

Oh, Keith thought.

Future Keith squeezed his hand back, a matching smile on his face, and so it hit Keith, all at once,  that all along the man he’d grow old with… was one he already loved.


End file.
